On the Internet, video sharing platforms or services allow users to upload, view, and share content, such as video content, image content, audio content, and so on. The content may include content from professional content creators, e.g., movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as content from amateur content creators, e.g., video blogging and short original videos.
A content sharing platform (CSP) may allow a third party service (e.g., a news service, a social network service, etc.) to embed a video hosted by the CSP on their web pages or application user interface (e.g., mobile app UIs) and may provide developers with an option to make a video start automatically (“autoplay”). When this happens, the CSP does not know whether a user actually wanted to watch a video or not, so the CSP cannot serve ads alongside the video (monetize it) or increment the video's view count.
In certain cases, a social network service or some other media portal may make up a large share of video views in a particular region or on a particular platform. If these services present embedded videos using an autoplay feature, then video creators may not get credit for their efforts because the CSP does not know whether users intended to watch these embedded videos or not since the users are not watching these videos on the CSP website or app. Furthermore, some videos may be blocked from playing in contexts where the video cannot be monetized.
One conventional approach of counting and monetizing videos embedded in third party content may involve forcing a user to click the video to start playback. However, this approach eliminates an autoplay feature desired by third party services. Another approach may involve adding a third party service to a whitelist to allow all of the autoplayed videos that are hosted by the CSP and appear on the third party website or app to be counted and monetized. However this approach can be easily abused.